International law firm Simmons & Simmons has acted as lead counsel on Irish merger-and-acquisition (M&A) deals worth more than €1 billion since the start of the year.

The firm's core areas of activity are asset management and funds, healthcare and life sciences, and technology, media and telecommunications.

It said that many of its 2023 transactions had been cross-border, regulated deals.

Headwinds

Despite the strong levels of activity at the firm, it has warned that wider M&A activity is down "markedly" compared with 2022 .

David Brangam (head of corporate at Simmons & Simmons in Dublin) commented: "The headwinds are definitely there in terms of geo-political instability, increased borrowing costs and inflationary pressures.

"Looking ahead, the gap between sellers' expectations and buyers' realities on valuations is narrowing only slowly. Deals are getting more complex and are taking longer to close, so the rest of the year is going to be challenging for deal-makers, " he added.